The Promised Land IV: The Gray Man
by LadyElaine
Summary: Sequel to 'Deus ex Memoria'. Richard B. Riddick woke up from almost half a century of living death unchanged. But you don’t pull a Rip van Winkle without consequences. *Complete!*
1. Eclipse: Losing Riddick

Title: The Gray Man  
  
Author: LadyElaine  
  
Rating: R  
  
Disclaimer: The characters and situations of "Pitch Black" belong to USA Films and David Twohy.  
  
Summary: Richard B. Riddick woke up from almost half a century of living death unchanged. But you don't pull a Rip van Winkle without consequences.  
  
Feedback: Feedback is appreciated. Constructive criticism is worshipped. dragonlady75069@attbi.com  
  
  
  
The Gray Man  
  
  
  
I. Eclipse: Losing Riddick  
  
  
  
I'm living in a stranger's skin.  
  
Richard B. Riddick woke up from almost half a century of living death unchanged. But you don't pull a Rip van Winkle without consequences. The boys and I had managed to skirt relativity, living in real time for only seventeen of Riddick's dead years, but still.  
  
But still.  
  
How do you give a man his fatherhood back? How do I give him back the time when Reg took apart the condenser, trying to figure out the workings, when he was six years old? How do I give him back the twins' tenth birthday, when Martin put aside the biggest piece of the cake "for Dad"? How do I give him back the family he never got to have, the boys who are now men, the girl he fell in love with?  
  
He can't see the gray that's sprouted at my temples, or the age that's beginning to lace the corners of my eyes. His enhanced eyes can see into the infrared spectrum, though; maybe that's why he looks past me these days, never at me. Have I really grown that cold? I must be living in a stranger's skin.  
  
A long time ago, we'd promised each other that we would visit Disneyland Heinlein. We never did go to Mars, but Disneyland eventually came to us. Eclipse finally became a popular enough tourist trap for the Disneyland Liner to make a stop. It was after Riddick had come back, after the Elder had somehow healed him; we toured the giant cruise ship's rides in silence, but he actually held my hand when we watched an old vid of "Beauty and the Beast". Then we were accosted by an overzealous Donald Duck, and Riddick turned and left. I don't want to think about what would have happened if I hadn't kept pace with his long, angry strides. That wasn't the first time he'd almost left me behind.  
  
The message screen was blinking when we got home. When Riddick hit the play button, though, the screen went dark. Appropriate, given the voice that came out.  
  
(Riddick. We have need of your skills. We request that you come to Darklin.)  
  
And that was all.  
  
Riddick erased the message, stalked into the bedroom, disrobed, and slid into bed, all without saying a word to me. I crawled in after him, and we lay in silence, our backs to each other. We were being so careful not to touch one another; if one of us shifted, the other would flinch away. I don't remember how much time had passed before I fell asleep, but Riddick was gone when I woke up. He'd been gone for a long time.  
  
I rolled over and felt nothing but cold sheets. I sat up and listened; the silence of the house was so familiar--too familiar. For one horrible minute, I thought Riddick was still down in the stasis freezer, waiting for a miracle that would never come. Slipping on my robe, I explored the house. Strange for it to be this empty. The boys had moved out once Riddick came back; but now he was gone, too. The bedrooms were the only rooms with no windows; the rest of the house lay bathed in blue and gold and white shafts of light. The motes of ever present dust danced and shone, lending the rooms the only hint of beauty left to them, now that they were so vacant.  
  
I ate my breakfast cold. Then I packed the only bag Riddick hadn't taken in the night.  
  
* * *  
  
Reg and Martin had agreed to meet me at the space port. They didn't quite stand shoulder to shoulder, but the way they were both nervously shifting on their feet made me feel like I was seeing double.  
  
The air was hot, even for Eclipse, and there were ring-shaped dust clouds spinning far overhead. Smaller dust devils, cousins to the larger clouds, danced crazily over the ground; my eyes teared up in the sudden gust.  
  
"Are you going after him?" That was Reg, always the serious one. He was already growing the same frown lines his father had developed years before. Why had I only noticed it now? Riddick no longer knew me; had I become a stranger to the boys, too?  
  
Martin embraced me but didn't say anything. I hugged him back, hard, and had to force myself to release him. Then I wiped the tears out of my eyes again and told both boys, "I'd better see grandchildren when I get back!"  
  
None of us questioned why I'd said 'I,' not 'we.' 


	2. The Lost Blue

II. The Lost Blue  
  
Riddick watched his home planet shrink from the entire viewscreen to nothing but a pale orange dot. 'Jack's gonna kill me,' part of him thought; but, 'She already did,' another part replied. His wrists ached coldly, as if he were still shackled. He rubbed the left wrist, then stopped when his thumb ran over the scar. He scratched at it, surprised to find that it had become swollen and slightly inflamed.  
  
That scar was his reminder of the first time he'd let a woman get the better of him. 'It should have been the last time, too, you stupid fuck.' He'd given Jack his trust. He'd given her a family. He'd given her a whole goddamn planet. She'd given him a stasis freezer.  
  
Doubling over, he grimaced as the phantom chills racked him again. He barely managed to lock in the ship's course before stumbling to his stateroom and collapsing on his bunk. 'Can't move can't breathe can't even fucking think Jack what the hell have you done to me?' Did she know? Did she ever even notice when he woke at night, shaking and shuddering from the nightmares of being frozen? He tried to at least cover himself with the thin blanket, but his fingers refused to work.  
  
It was a long time before the spasms stopped.  
  
* * *  
  
The first thing anyone ever noticed about Eclipse was the heat; but that was before they felt the lack of oxygen. And then there was the perpetual day.  
  
On Darklin, it was the moisture that hit Riddick first. It beaded on his neck, on his palms, on the butt of the pistol holstered at his side. The heat didn't bother him--not after so many years of living on a desert planet. Climbing down the walkway from his landing pad, though, he found himself taking in huge lungfuls of thick, humid air. Riddick forced himself to breathe shallowly. Accustomed to an oxygen-thin atmosphere, the air on this rainforest world was heady, like rum.  
  
One tree-branch walkway merged into another, crossed a third, and before long, Riddick was meandering, lost, descending into the labyrinth of the jungle city. The enormous branches closed over him, blocking out the light. He'd read that Darklin's sun was red-gold; but he could only imagine the gold filtering through the green leaves. Before disappearing into the dark the planet was named for, he thought, the light would fade to a deep blue. A blue that he'd lost when he'd gotten the shine job.  
  
The branches above and beneath him were a cacophony of sounds. Riddick stopped, uneasy, and found himself pressed against the side of the huge trunk.  
  
The shrieks and wails from somewhere below him fell silent; a chittering blur of tiny creatures whirred past him, mere inches away. As they rose, the air far above him stilled as well, and the branches creaked and moaned in the wind that followed their crazed flight.  
  
The limb he stood on shuddered under the weight of the creature that landed.  
  
The crest was shorter, the sensory horns more slender. The tail was long enough to wrap halfway around a huge, pillared branch, and the wings were slim and tapered, like a falcon's. 'Someone's been tinkering,' Riddick thought. But when he stepped toward it, the creature returned his grin, balancing itself on the base of its prehensile tail and spreading wide its taloned hands.  
  
(Who are you? Why are you here?)  
  
"Richard Riddick," he responded in surprise. "And I was sent for."  
  
(By whom?)  
  
"You got me.... One of your brethren, I don't know who."  
  
(Follow.)  
  
The faceless creature led Riddick over and under walkways and vines and hanging gardens, passing hardly any others like itself on the way. He frowned. This was supposed to be a city teeming with life. Where was everyone? He caught sight of only a few human silhouettes--none of them coming close enough to speak to--before his guide stopped him.  
  
(The Prime will speak to you,) the thing said, before it dove into the jungle below.  
  
Riddick looked around. There was nothing--and no one--here. Just more twisted branches sprouting from yet another giant, vined over tree trunk. "...Ishmael?" he ventured. The vines parted then, and somewhere behind them a giant, quiescent form flickered in his vision.  
  
"Hello, Mr. Riddick." The woman who emerged from the leafy curtain smiled at him. She was short haired and slim, with a determined set to her jaw. "I've been hoping to meet you for some time now. I expect you'd like to know why you're here?"  
  
Riddick's throat dried up. It couldn't be her--she'd been ripped from his arms a lifetime ago. He blinked, but the woman stayed the same. Were her eyes that same blue that he'd once loved? He took her proffered hand, only then finding his voice. "Carolyn."  
  
Uncertainty flitted across her face. "How did...? Never mind." She dropped his hand. "Yes, my name's Carolyn. Carolyn Freedman.  
  
"We have a killer on our hands, Mr. Riddick."  
  
* * *  
  
(Are you satisfied yet?)  
  
"No." The blonde woman glared into the perpetual blackness of the Prime's lair. "You didn't even let me warn him about the pollen--he's going down below without a breather. Do you really want him to lose his mind?"  
  
(Hearing moral semantics coming from you amuses us.) 


	3. Generations

III. Generations  
  
Riddick took a laser pistol, a conventional pistol, and a rifle; six magazine clips--three each of hollowpoint rounds and white phosphorus rounds; a brace of stilettos, three toothed daggers, and five flash-bang grenades. On top of the weaponry, he also brought three canteens of fresh water and a case of freeze-dried instant meals.  
  
Descending through the jungle's layers, Riddick discovered that the city was not built on many intertwining trees, but on only one. The tree was a giant--thousands, perhaps even millions of years old. What he had earlier taken for a multitude of trunks were actually thick supporting vines that sprouted from the huge branches. He assumed the vines--pillars, really-- would root themselves in the earth many miles below. The mother of all banyan trees, he thought in awe.  
  
Two winged ones had volunteered as temporary workhorses; one carried Riddick, the other the weaponry and supplies. They saw him to the 'Downbelow'--the main drop-off point from the city level into the depth of the jungle where most of the flying teeth hunted--but would go no farther.  
  
Used to hunt, Riddick thought. He'd learned that lately, fewer and fewer hunting parties had been returning. More of the winged people were either going into hibernation early or leaving the capital city altogether for outlying colony hives. Darklin city was becoming a ghost town.  
  
Most of the remaining city was alive with speculation on what the infamous Richard B. Riddick's fate would be. When he actually returned later that same day, though, no one seemed more surprised than Carolyn Freedman. Inside what was actually the trunk of the single, vast city tree, she stood at a lab counter, going over some old papers.  
  
"You didn't tell me you were a microbiologist."  
  
Carolyn glanced up from her genetic schematics in shock. "You... you never asked," she fumbled out.  
  
Riddick grinned, though it looked more like he was baring his teeth, and shifted the bag on his shoulder. "Oh, come on. You can come up with something better than that." He inched closer to her as he spoke. "I've seen your work, after all."  
  
"My... my work...?" Carolyn nervously shuffled the schematics into a folder.  
  
"Sweet deal you've got here." Closer. "How much do you get paid for what you do?"  
  
Carolyn opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "Let me dim the lights for you, Mr. Riddick. It'll be more comfortable for you, I'm sure."  
  
"The lights are dim enough, Carolyn." Close enough. His arm shot out, and Riddick pinned her to his body. "You have her eyes, don't you?" He jerked her head up to face him, stared into her eyes, and chuckled. "Like I said, the lights are dim enough. So... you didn't tell me what you do, you didn't tell me who you were... anything else you've left out?"  
  
Carolyn jerked out of his grasp; his fingers left tracks in her skin. Streaks of spots showed through where her makeup had been wiped off. She glared at him coldly, her eyes shining like a cat's. "You have no right," she hissed. "You have no right to ask! If it wasn't for you, Mr. Riddick, my ancestress would never have stayed on Janus, or met and married Moshe Ibrahim." She wiped her eyes furiously, revealing more spotted skin.  
  
Riddick's gaze was intense. "You look like her, you know." He shook his head and muttered, "You look like both of them." Carolyn and Kat in one body. It should have been fascinating.  
  
Carolyn's fist thudded on the counter. "I don't want to look like her, dammit! Do you have any idea how long the normal slave traits last?" Riddick shook his head. "One generation. One. Fucking. Generation. All future offspring are normal, with only the odd throwback now and then. But for some reason, dear old Grandma Kat's genes are almost always dominant."  
  
Riddick laughed harshly. "A geneticist who can't fix her own genes. How interesting. You did a good job, though, biosculpting your creature friends."  
  
He looked pointedly at a diagram hung on the wall. There were two creatures on it--original and modified. The changes were even more obvious side-by-side: longer, stronger tails; wings both shorter and slimmer, tapering to a cutting point; smaller crests and shorter sensory horns. These were creatures made for flight through thick forest, not for soaring in free air.  
  
Carolyn seemed to deflate then. "I did what I had to," she said in a dull voice. "They're asexual, they can't adapt to environmental changes quick enough. Maybe once in a thousand years, is there a helpful mutation. That's how slow their natural evolution is."  
  
"So you inherited your great grandfather's talent, too. Handy." Hefting the bag from his shoulder to the surface of the counter, Riddick said, "But you've got a bit of a problem down below." He unzipped the bag, revealing a cluster of moist-skinned, translucent eggs. "Your killer is reproducing."  
  
An expression of enthralled horror twisted Carolyn's delicate face. "Oh, my God." She seemed to regain her composure then--except for her hands, which kept wiping themselves on her shirt, as if they would never be clean. "They have to be destroyed immediately. They have to be burned." 


	4. Unbreakable

IV. Unbreakable  
  
It should never have happened. The hive mind is sound. We are stronger together than we are apart; but humans will be human. Although I am the Prime, and the winged people are my 'eyes and ears' (as the humans say), I cannot force my will in any great measure. Especially not upon such individual selves as the others possess.  
  
The people of the air are strong--placid in our collective Self, but furious fighters when the situation demands it of us. That is, of course, the great question laid upon us. How much is our freedom worth? If we cannot win our independence with what we have, do we actually deserve it? The Ibrahim family proved that freedom is earned, not stolen.  
  
The Orion Confederacy is a human institution, with human laws and human values. But we are not human. Not even the land-bound people among us are exactly human, anymore. Our families, our culture, our very way of living and dying is unrecognizable to visitors.  
  
Our wingless compatriots, descendants of ex-slaves and freedom fighters, are eager to walk in their ancestors' footsteps. They are free, but their promised land is still only a dream. Their spirit is unbreakable: proof that Kat's legacy is alive and well.  
  
Sometimes, though, the love of freedom becomes zealotry.  
  
It should never have happened. Riddick should never have been sent for. Permission for the message was certainly never given; did the sender hope instead to gain forgiveness? The man is here now, though. I must use him as is necessary. Were I human, perhaps I would need forgiveness as well.  
  
* * *  
  
It was night when the door to Riddick's temporary quarters opened. Hardly unusual--it was always night in the deep jungle of Darklin city. Riddick waited until the intruder was inches away from his bedside. Then--"Lights to full!" he barked, shutting his eyes tight.  
  
The gasp of pained astonishment led the launching of his body. When he had the intruder pinned beneath him, one hand wrapped around the slim throat, he blacked out the lights again and opened his eyes.  
  
"What the fuck are you doing here?"  
  
Jack's eyes were still streaming from the sudden light. "I wanted to bring you back home." She squirmed under Riddick's body, hands pressing uselessly against his chest; but he didn't move, and he didn't loosen his grip on her neck.  
  
Riddick bent his lips to his wife's. An inch away, his mouth stopped. "I left for a reason." Only then did he release her. He stood, but made no move to help Jack up off the floor.  
  
Picking herself up, Jack took a step back from her husband. "Why?" she demanded. "You stopped talking to me. You even stopped looking at me. Why? What the hell did I do wrong?"  
  
Quicksilver eyes flaring, he exploded. "You put me in a goddamn freezer, Jack! That's what!"  
  
"I was... I was...."  
  
"What? You were what?"  
  
"I--" Jack's breath caught as a sob escaped her. "I couldn't let you go. I couldn't let you...."  
  
"You couldn't fucking let me die. Not even when I wanted to. You never thought about what I felt in there? I'm not some unbreakable toy you can just take out when you want to fuck." Riddick felt his hands fisting, his arms beginning to tremble.  
  
No. He wasn't going to let her see him collapse on the bed, cradling his aching wrists, gasping at the freezing pain.  
  
Jack glanced down at Riddick's fists. When she looked back up again, she was smiling coldly. "Go ahead--try it," she snarled at him. "Last time you hit me, I wound up owning a world." Riddick matched her, glare for glare, but didn't answer her taunt.  
  
He was not going to let the spasms take him until she was gone.  
  
Finally, Jack looked away. Her jaw worked silently for a moment; when she did speak, it was in a carefully neutral voice. "What should I tell the twins? They're expecting their father to come home."  
  
Tell them Riddick's dead. He died somewhere on that planet.  
  
"Tell them they never had a father." 


	5. Restraints

V. Restraints  
  
Ishmael was very far from helpless. Though it spent most of its days and nights (not that there was any difference) in its lair, it was not confined. The jungle city lived and breathed in Ishmael's presence. It was the Prime. On any other world, that simply meant that it would own the planet and author the charter. But this was Darklin, and Ishmael was a Janite.  
  
It had grown to an immense size since its Primacy, but its atrophied wings had not kept up. No matter. Even had its wings developed to match, they would still have borne the torn wreckage left over from a long-ago battle. Flight, though, was anything but out of reach.  
  
Had a visitor looked into the Prime's den, he would have been shocked, perhaps even slightly horrified, at the sight of the massive, twisted creature. A maze of wires and tubes connected it to what a foreigner would think of as a computer, but what every Darkling child knew was the Hive Mind.  
  
* * *  
  
It was a long time before Riddick let himself exit his quarters.  
  
The first place he went was to Carolyn's lab. What the hell are you doing? he asked himself. He shoved away the voice that tried to reply, though, and knocked on the door. When there was no answer, he entered. His eyes picked shapes out of the darkness: vials and tubes and an enormous electron microscope. Cabinets and shelves and cryptic machinery. Books upon books upon books.  
  
No Carolyn, though her scent was all over the room. He knew there was more to her than she was letting on. He had smelled her secrecy when he'd first met her. It wasn't just that she was a geneticist, like her ancestor Moshe; there was something else here. He remembered the way Kat had tried, and failed, to keep her silence. Carolyn may not have worn the same collar as Kat once had, but she the way she moved... something was wearing her.  
  
How long had it been since he'd had to move so silently? Something stirred in the corner of his eye then, and he spun around to find--a cat. Its eyes flashed at him, and it hissed before jumping down off the tabletop and disappearing. Riddick frowned when it didn't reemerge from behind the table. He walked around, stopped. What the...?  
  
The wall behind the table was bare. There was no sign of the cat.  
  
* * *  
  
She usually tried to put her whole mind to any task, but tonight was different. Carolyn's hands were busy, deftly rubbing liniment into Ishmael's stiffened wing joints, but her thoughts were in the Downbelow.  
  
(You are angry.)  
  
Carolyn sighed and rubbed deeper. One of the wing joints popped, and Ishmael chirred in appreciation. "Why won't you let me warn him about the air down there? You won't even let me give him a breather. He's going to die, Ishmael."  
  
(He came back once already.) When Carolyn didn't respond, it spoke again. (What was it that he brought back?)  
  
"Eggs."  
  
(It is breeding, then.) Ishmael shifted its sensory horns, as if listening. (What did you do with the eggs?)  
  
"I burned them."  
  
Something between a growl and a purr escaped the Prime's throat. (Infanticide is a crime among humans, is it not?) Carolyn glared at Ishmael, but it only sighed and laid its head on its enormous talons. (It was not I that sent that message.)  
  
* * *  
  
It was a wall. It wasn't a wall. It felt real at the first touch, hard and solid. But when he pushed on it, his hand sank through. Riddick pulled his hand out and looked at it--not a scratch on it--and looked at the wall. Solid again.  
  
The fuck with it, he thought, and walked through.  
  
He yelled and shut his eyes, the heels of his hands pressing against suddenly moist eyelids. "Lights off!" he snapped. Nothing. He growled, ripped his goggles out of his pocket, and slipped them on, suddenly glad he hadn't gotten rid of the damn things.  
  
As soon as Riddick opened his eyes, he wished he hadn't. This was the dark side of the genetics lab. There was nothing here he wanted to see. Not the malformed embryos floating in stinking formaldehyde; not the small, vivisected winged corpses; not the holding pen hung with broken restraints. "Lockout Protocol," read the label over the ruined, twisted bars.  
  
No wonder the Darklings had sent for him specifically. 


	6. Up Above the Downbelow

VI. Up Above the Downbelow  
  
A series of small but strong vines had been braided into a ladder so long ago that they had grown together. They were slippery, though, and Riddick had no time to spare for the woman calling his name from up above.  
  
"Riddick, wait!" Carolyn yelled. "Don't go down there!"  
  
Why the hell not, he grumbled to himself, but didn't say anything in reply. Too late, anyway. He stepped off the end of the long ladder, not bothering to look up again. He knew she was coming down after him, he'd felt the vines shaking under her grappling hands. Idiot women; why couldn't they just leave well enough alone?  
  
"Mr. Rid--ow!!" Carolyn flinched as she slid the last few meters down, then began picking splinters out of her palms.  
  
Riddick smirked at her. "Satisfied yet?"  
  
"Not until you put on a damn breather!" Carolyn snapped back.  
  
Riddick frowned. "I'm not going underwater." She shot him a look he couldn't interpret and slung her pack off her shoulders. Muttering under her breath, she unzipped it and began rifling through the contents.  
  
"No... no... no.... Shit!" Carolyn sat with more of a squish than a thump onto the moist ground and clutched her head. "I put them in there. Dammit, I know I put them in there!"  
  
Riddick walked around her and crouched, facing her. "Put what in there?"  
  
Sweat was beading on Carolyn's brow, but she ignored it. Her hands, pressed to her temples, were shaking. "Goddammit, Ishmael," she whispered harshly. "Get out of my fucking mind!" Suddenly, she released her head. Claws sprang from her fingertips, and she sank them into her opposite arm. Despite the tears of pain, her eyes cleared, and she looked straight at Riddick. "There's a night flower down below called the weeping orchid." Her words came fast, as if she didn't know how long she could speak freely. "It secrets a liquid pollen, which evaporates. The airborne pollen causes hallucinations in humans. Ishmael didn't want you to... to know... because he didn't think you still had the ability...."  
  
Carolyn blinked rapidly several times and shook her head. "What...? I said something important, didn't I?" She looked at her bloodied hand, then at her clawed arm. "Ishmael!"  
  
Riddick sat back on his heels and growled. "He's wrong. Once you have blood on your hands... it never washes off." He stood up and pulled Carolyn to her feet, ignoring the warm stickiness on her fingers. "Go home, Carolyn. You don't want to see what I'm gonna have to do."  
  
"Fuck you very much, too, Mr. Riddick. I'm coming with you. Even if we did go back for a pair of breathers, I doubt we'd make it back down with them. Two heads are better than one, even if those heads are seeing pretty colors."  
  
Who is she trying to convince, Riddick wondered. He shrugged and said, "Suit yourself." He turned and headed for the next dropoff, stopping when Carolyn called after him.  
  
"Wait... your bag... your weapons. Where are they?"  
  
"This ain't no elevator, lady. Those things are damned heavy, you know."  
  
"What--you didn't--oh, tell me you didn't come down here unarmed!" Riddick found himself hard pressed to keep from laughing at her priceless expression of shock. "You're not the only predator out here!"  
  
He frowned, her words stirring something in him that he tried to push away. But her sweat was washing away her makeup, and Kat's spots were showing through. This is no time for fond memories, he growled to himself. He grinned at her. "Of course not. I stashed them down below."  
  
"But... Riddick, we already are down below."  
  
"Not all the way down."  
  
Carolyn stared at the vine Riddick had grabbed. "No one's ever gone any deeper than this...."  
  
"Now someone has," he shot back. And with that, he slid down the vine and disappeared.  
  
* * *  
  
Ishmael relaxed into the embrace of the Hive Mind, musing.  
  
(We, the people,) it thought. (How appropriate. We are one in the Hive, but the people are many. Especially the humans.) Most especially the humans. Carolyn Freedman above all. Her determination awed that part of the Prime which had learned to think on human terms.  
  
Even now, Darklin's declaration of independence from the Orion Confederacy was speeding across the light years. Soon, a fleet of warships would be launched from Earth, from Mars, from every military seat of the humans' central government. (Can we really win this war for ourselves?) it wondered. (Or was Carolyn right in what she did?) But Carolyn had fled down below with Riddick. Their fate was out of Ishmael's metaphorical hands now. Even its own fate was in question.  
  
There was little the Prime could do now, other than wait and watch and hope. (Hope,) it chirred to itself, (is a human thing.) 


	7. The Hunted

VII. The Hunted  
  
Ground scrub was nonexistent here at the base of the forest. Unless, that is, one counted the pervasive moss carpeting the damp ground. The air was heavy with a scent Riddick hadn't noticed before; nose twitching, he wondered if it was the odor of Carolyn's weeping orchids. Scanning upwards, he saw vines twining their way across the giant trees, laden with small flowers and bromeliads.  
  
Carolyn sidled up to him, blinking against the darkness. "Where to?" she whispered.  
  
Riddick rubbed his own eyes and took a second, longer look at his surroundings. "Five trunks to the southwest," he said. "My stuff's inside a hollow there."  
  
When he turned and began walking, Carolyn frowned and trotted to keep up. "How do you know which way's southwest?"  
  
He smiled back at her and tapped his temple. "Added benefit of the shine job. I can see magnetic fields. It's why I never had it reversed, not even on Eclipse."  
  
I wonder how much use he'll get out of it down here, she thought, but she didn't say anything aloud. She just hoped that particular skill would last long enough. They walked in silence for what seemed like days, but was probably only ten minutes. Her eyes picking out small movements between the monumental tree trunks, Carolyn didn't notice that Riddick had stopped until she bumped into him.  
  
Cursing roundly, Riddick wiped a hand across his eyes, the angry words tumbling fast and furious from his lips in more languages than any one man should have known. He bent into a hollow trunk and let out a final, vehement "Fuck!"  
  
A broken strap was the only thing he emerged with.  
  
* * *  
  
The hunter sank its claws into the bark of the trunk it perched on, waiting silently. Soon enough, it would send the little ones in. They hadn't killed in some time, and they were becoming restless. It chided them silently to have patience.  
  
They were finding out now, these humans, just what it meant to play with fire. The big male had found his weapons gone. A hideous grin split the otherwise featureless face. And the female....  
  
It fancied it could already taste her blood.  
  
* * *  
  
Riddick dropped what was left of his pack in disgust.  
  
"Oh, God," Carolyn gasped. "Oh, my God. Oh, no." She hugged herself, shivering. "They're gonna kill us."  
  
Pulling up his pants leg, Riddick unbound a hidden sheath from his calf. He threw a cursory glance at the frightened woman. "Go back topside, then. Otherwise, shut the hell up."  
  
"What? No, Riddick, you don't under--"  
  
He cut her off, glaring. "I understand just fine. You played tinker toys with your flying friends, didn't you? And now it's come back to bite you in the ass. Literally."  
  
Carolyn's mouth opened and closed again as if she were swallowing spasmodically. "They were supposed to defend us, not kill us. We're going to war soon, you know. We needed a fighting breed."  
  
"What, like the original form was helpless? Not only did you screwed with its genes, you locked it in a fucking cage," he growled. "Great idea. Now you've got a psycho killer to deal with." He stalked off, angrily sheathing and unsheathing the double-edged dagger.  
  
"Look, Riddick," she called, running after him. "I know how it sounds, but it's different!"  
  
He spun around. "Different? How? Because it has wings? It doesn't matter whether it's human or not, you chained it down and tortured it." Riddick blinked rapidly and looked around, but the motion he kept seeing out of the corners of his eyes had vanished. He turned away again, his back to Carolyn, and strapped the dagger to his belt. "Whoever sent that message is a goddamn idiot. I'm the last person that should be doing this." At her silence, he glanced over his shoulder.  
  
Carolyn was staring at him with a stricken look. "I sent it," she said. "I'm sorry. I thought--"  
  
For the second time, Riddick cut her off, chopping one hand through the air. His eyes roved through the darkness, trying to peel back the layers of night. "It's here."  
  
Riddick could see her shaking, but she still stood her ground. "Where?" she breathed.  
  
"Everywhere." 


	8. From Nowhere to Nowhere

VIII. From Nowhere to Nowhere  
  
His vision was impossibly riddled with sparks.  
  
Of its own accord, Riddick's hand rose up, trying to wave the things away, but he knew it was useless. He felt the warmth of Carolyn's back pressed against his, and he forced himself to look past the hypnotically dancing points of light. But where he should have seen heat signatures, all he caught were evasive shadows.  
  
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," he sang under his breath.  
  
"What do we do now?" Carolyn's voice was nothing more than a quavering whisper.  
  
"You made the damn things," Riddick muttered back. "You tell me."  
  
"If we had some light...." But there was no light. The remote globes were gone, along with every other piece of weaponry and armament that Riddick had cached down below. The one dagger he cradled against his arm was all that was left. That, and Carolyn's claws.  
  
No, that wasn't right. Carolyn hadn't had claws, that was Kat. But Kat was dead. Ishmael had let her wear herself out bearing child after child to Moshe Ibrahim. Fine Prime he'd made.  
  
Fine Prime he'd made, when he couldn't even stop Kat--no, Carolyn--from being torn from his arms. But she was here again, standing back to back with him, defiant against the deadly night. He couldn't let it happen again. They were out there, the bastards; they were everywhere. He couldn't pin down the phantoms, though, the shapes that ghosted from nowhere to nowhere. Where his vision had once been floridly neon, now everything had faded to shades of gray.  
  
The attack, when it came, was eerily silent.  
  
No chirrs. No hoots. No echoing shrieks.  
  
The fury of it astonished Riddick, so long accustomed to the tame and friendly beasts of Janus and Eclipse. Even the juveniles were more than capable of affection and trust; but these--these were nothing but miniature flying teeth. They barreled over and around Riddick and Carolyn, clawing and biting with cruel glee. When the swarm finally passed with no more sound than a sigh, the two humans were left gasping and bloody, leaning on one another for strength.  
  
From out of the darkness between the trees, Riddick heard a sound like a thousand mad children giggling. Clinging to him, Carolyn shivered.  
  
"How," Riddick panted, "how am I supposed to kill those things?"  
  
"The little ones," Carolyn answered breathlessly. "They're only designed to live a month or so. Just the adult--you just have to find and kill the one adult." And then her legs must have given out, because she sagged to the ground, spent.  
  
Riddick barely caught her as she dropped. One leg curled beneath her, while the other was flung out carelessly. She was worse off than he'd realized--much worse. Long strips of flesh had been torn from her limbs and torso; bone showed through in more than one place. Although his own arms felt like they had been through a meat grinder, he cradled the broken body close. Her arms hung limp, but she smiled up at him.  
  
"No," he growled. "You're not gonna do this to me again."  
  
He tried to carry her back to safety, but wherever he turned, there were only more shadowed vines and lianas. Every tree trunk looked the same. Finally, he set her against one trunk so that she could sit comfortably. Her head lolled to one side, like a rag doll's, dull eyes staring into nowhere. Riddick took her face in his hands, wondering why she suddenly felt so cold, and said, "Stay here. I'm gonna find some help. I won't be long."  
  
It was the hardest thing he'd ever done, leaving her there. He cursed furiously, but then told himself that he wasn't going to let her die. Not this time. Carolyn, Kat, it didn't matter. 'She's gonna live, goddamit!' he said to himself, and turned for one last look.  
  
She was gone. 


	9. The Gray Man

IX. The Gray Man  
  
He'd done it. He'd left her. Carolyn was gone again, and again it was because of him. Some part of his mind wondered inanely if she would have still been there, if only he hadn't looked.  
  
Blood glinted grayly on the gray trunk and on the gray soil. "...Called the weeping orchid," came a whispering voice from somewhere in the darkness. It was Kat's voice! Riddick spun around, but there was nothing there. "...Hallucinations in humans." No, it was Carolyn's voice.... But she was dead. They were all of them dead, long dead and gone. A chill crept down Riddick's spine that had nothing to do with the trails of blood leaking from his numerous wounds.  
  
"I said I'd die for them, not you."  
  
The memory of pain stabbed through his leg then--only a moment, but it was long enough to drive him to his knees. He stayed there, knowing that he had to get up, but knowing, too, that something else was waiting for him to rise. When he finally pushed himself to his feet, it was with the understanding that he was not going to live out the night.  
  
If the Darkling creatures had been altered to fit their new environment, then this beast was barely recognizable as the same species. Long-limbed and gracile, it was almost feline in design. Where most people would call one of these asexual creatures 'he', this one had a distinct femininity. Her narrow wings were translucent, and her velveteen skin bore a clouded pattern. The thin sensory horns, instead of jutting abruptly to the sides, swept forward gently.  
  
On the ground beneath her lay Carolyn's remains. The long, split tail lashed silently as the beast tore at the body with enraged, almost desperate, abandon.  
  
He should have been eager to slice the thing from teeth to tail, should have ached to watch the entrails spill, steaming, onto the ground. The body even now being further savaged under those talons pled for vengeance, but Riddick hadn't even the strength to draw his dagger.  
  
The smooth, unpebbled skin was laced with familiar scars.  
  
He knew what had to have made those marks. He'd once worn a behavioral inhibitor; he'd worn shackles and chains for more years than he wanted to remember; he'd worn a metal bit that had tasted like life in a cold, damp cell. Riddick watched her fanatically ripping into the ruined corpse, and a keen ache pierced him.  
  
"She did this to you, didn't she?"  
  
At the sound of his voice, the creature's head snapped up. Her sonar sounding, instead of a harsh shriek, was a treble thrum; but it was no less effective for its delicacy. Riddick found himself instinctively backpedaling, lucidity suddenly washing over him.  
  
'I am so fucked,' he thought.  
  
She swept toward him, wings spread as if she would take flight any second. Riddick forced himself to stop, forced himself to wait for exactly the right moment. The moment came. He lunged at her, freezing less than an inch away. A handful of heartbeats passed.  
  
And then she grinned hideously.  
  
'I am so very, very fucked.'  
  
He had acted without thinking, without realizing what the forward curvature of the beast's sensory horns meant. No blind spot. He was close enough for the stink of her breath to wash over him, and there was no way that he could get away before she struck.  
  
When she did strike, it was with a decidedly satisfied chirr. Riddick tried to roll away, but the hot agony from his chest and shoulder told him he'd been far too slow. Then he found his dagger in his hand, slick with blood. His blood? The creature's? He didn't have time to wonder. He flailed blindly, left-handedly, hoping just to get one clean hit in before the teeth cut him in half.  
  
She shook him mercilessly, but then dropped him with a shocked, angry squeal. Not surprised to find himself on the ground, he looked up to see that he had, indeed, landed a perfect slash across her ribs. With a groan, he forced himself up, stabbing deep into her belly. She screamed again, her pain and fury slicing him just as acutely.  
  
They fell simultaneously. The beast landed with a decisive thud; but Riddick was amazed to feel breath still rushing in and out of his lungs. He sat himself up with a long groan and looked himself over.  
  
"Why the hell am I still alive?" he muttered. He looked again at the beast. She lay unmoving; the gore splashed across her carcass seemed obscene next to her delicate wings.  
  
His breath caught in his throat, and he decided that no, he wouldn't be leaving this place alive.  
  
The vision that drew his eye next seemed to assure that decision. 'You got it all wrong, God,' he thought. 'A man like me... I don't get to see any angels.' 


	10. Promised Land

X. Promised Land  
  
I guess most people expect angels to have big, feathery wings. Wear bathrobes, play harps, all that shit. But even an old killer like me knows an angel when he sees one.  
  
It's wearing some sort of mask, with a tube running from the face to a canister at its side. But it's glowing, too, and the way it moves.... Like a dancer. Like an athlete. Like a scrawny little teenage girl I once knew, with a bad case of hero worship. It takes the mask off then, and I want to rub my eyes to make sure what I'm seeing is real. But my hands have decided they like it down on the ground with the rest of my body.  
  
Jack o' lantern. Jack-in-the-pulpit. Jack and the beanstalk. Jack the giant killer.  
  
Jack B. Badd.  
  
She's older than I remember her--prettier, too--and she's grown her hair back. Nix the cue ball effect. How'd it grow so quickly? "Get up," she says, but I just chuckle at her. More of a grimace, really. It hurts too much to laugh. But what the hell's she doing down here?  
  
"Get up, Richard!" Aw, hell. She only calls me that when she's really pissed.  
  
"Where..." My voice cracks. I try again. "Where's the holy man?" We can't leave him behind, after all. He's got something important to do; something about slaves, about a two-faced planet. But then I remember.  
  
"He's dead," Jack says. Her voice sounds strained. Is she crying?  
  
"Dead," I echo. "She's dead." And if Jack thinks I'm talking about Kat or Carolyn--either of the Carolyns--I don't say anything to clarify.  
  
She pushes the mask onto my face then, and I take a deep breath of clean, sweet air. My head clears a little, enough for me to remember the events of the past few days. I left her, and she followed me. I drove her away with words that must have hurt a hell of a lot more than fists, and she came back. I can't let myself just sit and rot away.  
  
Because Jack came back for me.  
  
* * *  
  
"What are you going to do now?"  
  
I'm lying on a sterile hospital bed with more stitches in me than Frankenstein's monster. The lights are dim, and Jack is sitting beside me, playing absentmindedly with my goggles. She's wearing the same glow silk shirt and pants she wore when she saved me, but the glimmer's not bright enough to bother an old beast like Ishmael. It was Jack who spoke, and it's Ishmael who answers now.  
  
(I will wait, and I will watch.) The room seems smaller with Ishmael curled up in it. The last time I saw him was on Eclipse. A brief hello and goodbye, and then he was gone. He's grown tremendously since then. He's big enough that I think maybe he's approaching the age past which his kind don't die.  
  
"What'll you do if you win the war?" And that's a whole new can of worms. The warships are already on their way here. When news reaches Janus and Eclipse....  
  
(Then I will sleep, and I will dream... and perhaps I will fly again.) A superstitious thrill creeps up my spine at the mention of the not-death the ancient of Ishmael's breed experience. The oldest ones are damn near worshiped, but I know better--I know the living death firsthand.  
  
I find myself unconsciously rubbing my wrists, and I brace myself for another attack, but nothing happens. It's then that I realize it: Carolyn and her creation weren't the only things left dead down below.  
  
"And if you lose?" I ask. I have to know.  
  
(If we lose, then I expect that I will die.) It's as if he said that rain was wet, for all the equanimity in his words.  
  
He cocks his ugly hammerhead at me, and I know what he's about to ask. "No. I won't fight for you." Jack stares at me, her lips parting in surprise. Her hand finds mine, and I squeeze it.  
  
And it's true. I'm done with it, with all of it. Darklin, Janus, even Eclipse--the winged people are headed for war, but I'm done.  
  
I started out in a liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. I've lived longer than I ever wanted to. I have a family that I barely even know. Before too long, I'll be leaving this labyrinth of a world, where the idea of a promised land has made freedom fighters out of slaves. And just maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll have grandkids soon. It's almost more than I can imagine.  
  
The galaxy's about to rip itself apart. But I'm going home.  
  
  
  
The End. Really! I mean it this time! 


End file.
